Originally Posted by kane

I watched it and while he makes some really good points it is hard to say how realistic it is. You could just as easily put together a piece of video like Michael Moore did that makes it look the the Canadian system is fast, easy to use and works flawlessly.

I know a few people that live in Canada and most of them say the same thing about it. If you have an emergency or are badly injured, it works great. If you need regular check ups and treatment any average primary care giver can provide it works great (albeit you might wait a little longer than some to get into see the doctor). If you fall in the middle where it takes time to diagnose and deal with your issue, it can be a pain in the ass.

We have many of those same problems now. Here is an example that just happened to someone I know:

A friend of mine started having some severe hip pain. After a week or so it wasn't going away and she got worried. She goes to see her doctor who says she has some problem with and will need to see a specialist. He gives her some pain meds and some pamphlets on how to stretch out early in the day to help relieve the pain. It takes 6 weeks to get into the specialist. The specialist wants an MRI done. It took another 2 weeks get that done because it had to be pre-approved by the insurance. The specialist looks at the MRI and tells my friend she will have to have surgery. But there is a catch. The insurance won't pay for surgery unless other 'less invasive' methods are tried first. So the specialist sends her somewhere else to get a cortisone injection. After the injection she has 30 days of physical therapy. This will not work. The specialist said so. The reason it won't work is that my friend's hip socket has a flat spot in it. She was born with it like that and over the years that flat spot has destroyed the cartilage on the ball of her hip. The only way to fix it is to go in and surgically repair the cartilage and use a laser to re-shape the hip socket. But insurance won't pay until they jump through these other hoops. Finally 4 1/2 months after going to see her doctor and spending a bunch of time doing stuff she didn't need to do, she gets the surgery.

We already have socialized medicine in a way. It is controlled by one body, that body just isn't the government, it is the insurance companies. If they don't think you need a treatment, you aren't going to get it unless you either sue them in order to get them to pay or pay for it yourself out of pocket.

Be it the government that controls it or insurance companies that control it, there will always be problems. Only when doctors and patients get to control the care will things work as they should and that isn't happening unless you can pay cash for your treatment.

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

No system is perfect unless you're prepared to spend a small fortune on it. With people living longer and more discoveries in the medical field all the time the costs are going to climb.

But I would never want to be in a system where an insurance company decides whether I live or die. And with my recent throat cancer that would of been the case. The chemo therapy I got involved new drugs that were being tested, I had to sign a waver form, and from what I heard they were not covered for in the US. Even though they are a US drug.

Originally Posted by zabijaq

damn propaganda sh!t.

People in US should sometimes takes their fat asses out of their country and visit other countries.
You're healthcare is licence to steal. Not in terms of socialized or everyone for himself. It's just heavily overpriced.